Dear Martin
At the University of Bristol we have for the past few years
used a resource allocation model to inform budget setting.
This attributes corporate costs on the basis of a series of
cost drivers. The corporate costs include buildings,
central administration, library and computing, officers such
as Deans, and a contribution to the planned surplus. The
drivers are based on activity and include staff, staff
turnover, student numbers, income, and space. The drivers
are chosen to give a realistic idea of the full cost of any
activity and to help inform strategic planning.
The number of drivers, which can be combined in various
ways, and the number of different categories of corporate
cost that need to be attributed, makes the system very
complex. In negotiating budgets we tend to spend an inordinate
amount of time talking about whether the attribution of
costs is fair, rather than talking about the bottom line.
As Dave Radcliffe points out, changes in the assumptions
about activity in one budget centre affect everyone else's
attributed costs. The heads of budget centres hate it when
that happens during the negotiation process!
As a result, we are considering moving to a simpler system.
If you would like to know more I can email you the
description of our RAM, which describes the cost drivers in
detail.
Maggie
On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 12:34:17 +0100 Martin Smith
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues
>
> I wonder if some of you could give me some background on your resource
> allocation models. I have recently moved University and have been asked
> to work towards devolving budgets to Schools (this is currently
> controlled centrally). I am familiar with the model from my last
> University but I am not sure how typical it was.
>
> Essentially what I would like to know is how you treat central costs.
> Do you top-slice for central costs (Registry, Library etc) and then use
> an income model to distribute the remainder, or do you charge central
> costs back to Schools/Faculties? If you charge central costs, on what
> basis is this done?
>
> I would be grateful for any general information on your resource
> allocation model.
>
> Thanks
>
> Martin Smith
> Director of Planning and Development
> University of Paisley
> 0141 848 3970
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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_______________________________________________________
Maggie Robertson
Planning Support Unit, University of Bristol
Telephone: 0117 928 7963
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